what it is, is the anxiety that something might be happening that we can come to understand by looking at the phenomena, something that i have a feeling is a bad thing. the idea of seeing 2400 poetry books, or 4400, is a figure that’s dwarfed by any good university library or a main library in a major city. and a library has the added benefit of endowing the books with a sense of inheritance (as opposed to taking annual tally), of fostering community beyond marketing and without the intrusion of self-promoting artists.

if it gets somebody to let go of the pretension that they can encompass it all with its overwhelming display, i guess i agree that’s a good thing–a socratic kind of humility–because of course we can’t really ‘keep our finger’ on american poetry, even if in our prime we can read a thousand pages an hour (i just heard h. bloom claim that capability for himself when he was in thirties; he’s some kind of otherworldly creature!)

i’m certain i would have loved it. i can’t walk into a bookstore w/o my wife rolling her eyes and asking me to give her my wallet. when i see a book i want, i lose control, and it really is a crime how they (book publishers, bookstores) can coerce me out of $100 the way they do, and for books that i don’t know when i’ll ever be able to read, that might possibly be stolen over the internet, or checked out at the library.

maybe i’m just jealous.
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I do think you would have liked it, and found enough great things there.

One thing: in the abstract, it’s one thing to talk about “a kind of glib, resentful eagerness to accept it all without being judgmental, to evaluate art by every other measure other than its [excuse me for correcting your apostrophe here] aesthetic merit so as not to exclude or denigrate ‘lesser’ writers.” I have certainly felt that way myself also.

BUT, when you are actually THERE, and you see not only the books, in all their variety of formats and bindings and covers, and not only that but the POETS, in all their variety of backgrounds and expectations, you see that the world of poetry is so much wider than any of us can possibly encompass, especially those of us with MFA degrees or whatever who might spend a lot of time trying to encompass it or thinking we are encompassing it. In other words, it really is a WORLD, meaning “it takes all kinds,” “live and let live,” etc. etc. etc., and to begin to try to judge it or narrow it down just feels kind of irrelevant, like trying to decide that certain breeds of dogs shouldn’t exist or something. It had that effect on me anyway, in retrospect; seeing what 2400 books looks like made me more aware of the fact that each of us has a place in the scheme of poetry and we don’t really need to worry about the places of others. In retrospect I found it, paradoxically, relaxing.
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true, there’s great poetry that’s beyond most people’s ability to appreciate (we’ve all experienced it), and so a stratification and a diffractive radiation can sometimes spread us thin and gather us up in almost-isolated schools, and not be a bad sign for the state of poetry. but there’s also so much poetry out there, and so much of it bad and unreadable, and along with it a kind of glib, resentful eagerness to accept it all without being judgemental, to evaluate art by every other measure other than it’s aesthetic merit so as not to exclude or denigrate ‘lesser’ writers…well, the idea of so many poetry books could only be exciting if it meant the impossible: so many great poetry books. instead the showcase is all too possible, too successful, and entirely impotent to change people’s minds about poetry for the better (it probably turns more people off, who walk away silently, than it brings anybody in, which is the very definition of any trap’s failure).
i’m sure i would have liked it, and probably went overboard buying books while i was there, and that a lot of them were probably great.
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And congratulations on your latest achievement.

Best,

Mari
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Well, we need more critics.

It’s a simple as that.

We should form a consortium of The One Hundred Critics. I think universitites could subsidize them, if they pooled their resources.

Now, these 100 Poetry Critics, known as ‘the one hundred’ and featured on the cover of Time & Newsweek, perhaps, would reintroduce standards again into a dying art.

All of a sudden 2,400 books does not seem so insurmountable.

That’s only 24 books per critic, per year.

24 per year. That’s it.

There you go. The world of poetry is under control.

Hell, give me 9 critics and the 10 of us will take care of 2400 books, easily. That’s 240 books per critic. I’m sure I can go through 240 books in an afternoon, or a weekend, let’s say, especially since by reading the first few poems in a book I would get a sense pretty quickly if there was something new and outstanding going on.

Thomas
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Why do we go on?
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The Grolier Poetry Bookshop is a much happier story, not only open but apparently very healthy.

Was the poetry as good as I could hope for. . . Hmmmm . . .When you are talking about a whole year’s worth of poetry publishing, you are asking a very large question. And I guess the only realistic answer when there are 2400 books in the room, from pretty much everyone publishing poetry in the country, is yes, of course, absolutely, the poetry is as good as one could hope for at such an event.

Because of course, one great thing about this event is that it doesn’t try to be all things to all poets. Its clear and valuable mission is simply to be inclusive without evaluation.

In fact, the organization by publisher does make it easy to find what you are looking for, to figure out which publishers publish the kind of poetry you want to read. So in a nutshell, if what one is looking for isn’t there, that is in no way the fault of Poets’ House….

Nothing could or should ever replace the Showcase, but in view of James’ comment, it is interesting to imagine similar, smaller events that would do a more active job of curating the books of poetry for particular tastes.
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the real measures–could you find what you wanted (ugly duckling presse always has something i want)?, was the poetry as good as you could hope for?
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/31/bookstall_owner_plans_to_shut_down_fixture_in_harvard_square/
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Thanks for this fabulous bit of reportage, and the photos too. 2400 books – that seems like an outlandish figure. I can’t imagine such I thing. Lee Briccetti should receive some sort of decoration. I like how you describe your sudden onset of browser’s block (quickly overcome, it seems). The first thing I do when I return to the states to visit my parents, who live on the coast south of Boston, is to make a trek into Cambridge to Grollier’s (is it still there?…it always seemed on the verge of closing, and I haven’t been to the states for two years). I always get a kind of shock when I walk in, moving from the tables to the shelves, and back to the tables. The closest thing I have like that is The Village Voice, in Paris, not exactly next door to Coimbra! I’ve never understood Portuguese bookstores, since they don’t order things alphabetically (or they might, sometimes by last name, other times by first name) – most often it’s by categories, but categories which are so arcane that even the bookshop employees are flummoxed when you ask them if they have something. Of course I like reading Portuguese (I translate the stuff all day long after all) but I really miss New York bookstores, browsing, windowshopping, the whole bit…browsing in one’s mother tongue….so thanks for this.

And many congratulations on your new book Shadow-Bird. It looks lovely. Looks hand-stiched…can’t wait to see what’s inside.

Martin
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